No oil painting

Last night on Five Live I was talking about smoking with presenter Ian Payne and Birmingham GP Dr Fay Wilson.

Dr Wilson (an ex-smoker) is listed by Pulse at No 7 in "the top 50 most influential GPs":

Described by one GP on our panel as ‘unstoppable’, the veteran Birmingham GP has been a chair of the annual LMCs conference and a guest editor of Pulse – using her issue to champion the role of women in the profession. Dr Wilson continues to be an inspiring figurehead and her popularity was reflected by the warm applause she received last June after announcing she was stepping down as LMCs chair.

I suspect that descriptions like this have gone to Dr Wilson's head because she sounded remarkably pleased with herself ("Hiya", "yeah").

I don't doubt her good intentions but she really over-stepped the mark when she commented:

"Smoking doesn't just make you sick, it makes you poor and ugly as well."

To my mind it's comments like this that bring the entire medical profession into disrepute. Is this how she speaks to her own patients? Do her older patients who smoke know that she considers them to be "ugly"?

Now I deplore personal attacks, especially on people's personal appearance, and I don't intend to start now. Sometimes, however, I am sorely tempted ...

PS. You can listen to the item HERE, about 35 minutes in (August 18). No gratuitous insults, please. Let's not stoop to her level.

Five Live tonight

I'm on Five Live tonight discussing teenage smoking with presenter Tony Livesey Ian Payne (left) and others. Tomorrow morning, around 7.45, I'm on BBC Radio Cumbria talking about tobacco and whether the Government should ban it. Following that, I think I'm on Radio Belfast as well.

Update on Wednesday, August 18, 2010 by Simon Clark

23:25 ... On Five Live I was on with a Birmingham GP, Dr Fay Wilson, who was sooooooo patronising. (Fay Wilson: that name rings a bell.) Anyway, if I heard her correctly, she seemed to suggest that smoking is a sure way to end up poor and ugly. Nice. I wonder if she speaks to her patients like that. (Click HERE - about 38 minutes in.)

Update on Thursday, August 19, 2010 by Simon Clark

23:31 ... I have just received a rather nice email. "Dear Friend," it reads. "Just writing to congratulate your speaker on the radio re the smoking ban. I'm 42 and don't smoke but feel very uncomfortable with the fascist treatment of smokers - it is selective racism as far as I'm concerned, and if any other group of people had been treated like this, the international community would have been up in arms, and the EU would have drawn up sanctions. Good luck to you all."

Tribute to Herman Leonard

Three years ago, shortly before the introduction of the smoking ban in England, Forest got together with Boisdale to produce a CD entitled You Can't Do That! Songs For Swinging Smokers. It features 20 songs about smoking (and coffee!), including classics such as 'Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette', so we wanted the sleeve to feature an image that reflected the smoky, jazz club environment we were trying to recreate.

I was sent a picture of American jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon. The photographer was Herman Leonard, famous for what Associated Press describes as "his smoky, backlighted black-and-white photos of such greats as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra".

The shape of the photo meant it wasn't suitable for the cover of the CD but we eventually found a place for it on the insert that appears in the back of the CD case (see above).

Of course I had to track down the agency responsible for the copyright and agree a fee. I won't tell you how much we paid but it wasn't cheap. It was worth it however to have a bona fide Herman Leonard photograph on the CD.

The reason I mention this is because Herman Leonard died on August 14 and in tribute the BBC has posted an audio slideshow of his work HERE.

Update on Wednesday, August 18, 2010 by Simon Clark

The Telegragh has an obituary HERE. Funnily enough, the print edition features Leonard's picture of Dexter Gordon.

Introducing ... Forest Éireann

Further to my recent trip to Ireland, I am delighted to report that Forest is to launch its first group outside the UK. Like Forest, Forest Éireann will campaign against the denormalisation of smoking and the vilification of smokers by the tobacco control lobby.

This is what we call a 'soft' launch (ie done without any fanfare). The plan is to attract a core group of supporters and then develop a modest website that will feature news, information and a dedicated blog.

Our spokesman in Ireland is John Mallon. John and I first swapped emails in 2005 when he wanted to make a film highlighting the truth about passive smoking. "I am a smoker who deeply resents having to go out in the rain to smoke because of a law enacted on a false premise," he told me.

Today he says: "When plans for a comprehensive smoking ban were announced, what got to me was the sense that there was something fundamentally wrong with the whole thing. The way the ban was sold to us was designed to ensure that no decent person could oppose it. Yet I had nagging doubts.

"Any suggestions about compromise, partial restrictions or even a voluntary code were rejected in the most high-handed fashion. In my experience this was most unusual because Irish society is better known for its cheerful tolerance and our live and let live attitude to life.

"The outcome of the ban, now in its sixth year, suggests that it has been counter-productive. Smoking rates have increased while one pub a day closes due to the effects of the ban. Meanwhile society is polarised at social occasions due to large numbers of people being forced to go outdoors.

"The ban affects everybody, smoker and non-smoker alike. If people do not fight for their rights, a host of other restrictions will surely follow."

I've been to Ireland many times since 2003 and I've lost count of the number of times I've been interviewed on Irish radio in particular.

As much as I enjoy the opportunity, I have always felt that Forest should be represented in Ireland by a bona fide Irish voice and having met John I believe we have the right man.

If you live in Ireland (or are Irish and living abroad) please register your support HERE.

Pubs need smokers

Philip Johnston, one of the speakers in our recent Voices of Freedom series of debates, has written an article in today's Daily Telegraph that is summed up by the headline: Smokers could breathe life back into pubs.

Funnily enough, I am currently drafting a piece that will appear in the brochure for the Morning Advertiser's Great British Pub Awards dinner next month. It includes this quote from Antony Worrall Thompson: "It may be unfashionable to say so but pubs need smokers and we must do as much as we can to accommodate them."

Update on Tuesday, August 17, 2010 by Simon Clark

22:50 I have just recorded a ten-minute piece with Duncan Barkes on TalkSport on the subject of the smoking ban and Philip Johnston's article. You'll have to be a night owl to hear it, though. Duncan's show is on air from 1.00-6.00am ... Me? I'm going to bed. Goodnight.

More evidence of the bully state

This time last year I was busy editing The Bully State: The End of Tolerance, Brian Monteith's entertaining but depressing picture of modern day Britain. Any hopes that the bully state would disappear under the new Government disappeared when I read that a woman, an elderly widow of 75, had been "threatened with £2,500 fine for dropping cigarette ash". Full story HERE.

I'm not suggesting that we should tolerate litter but even a £75 fine seems excessive in this instance. Cigarette ash is not, by any definition, litter. And even if the fine was for dropping a cigarette butt, surely a quiet word would have been sufficient? But no, wardens have to justify their existence and it wouldn't surprise me if they have targets to meet.

(A police officer wrote to the Motoring section of the Telegraph some time ago and explained that, in his area, you are less likely to get caught for speeding or other motoring offences in the latter part of the month because once police officers have met their monthly targets they tend to be less vigilant.)

Of course you could argue that what happens in Oldbury has nothing to do with central government, but I disagree. The previous government tacitly encouraged the bully state mentality that Brian writes about in his book and it is something that the new Government must get to grips with.

If we want officials to use a bit more common sense and compassion when dealing with relatively minor offences, the message has to come from the very top. If wheel clampers are to be banned from operating on private land (note the word "private"), I don't think it is unreasonable to expect the authorities to adopt a less heavy-handed approach in public areas too.

PS. I have just Googled The Bully State and it is currently available from Amazon for £85.61 (new) or £77.35 (used). See HERE. The recommended retail price is £6.99 and I should know - I've got a box of them (the last remaining copies) in my study at home!

Update: Anna Raccoon has more on the Sheila Martin story HERE.

Blast from the past

On Friday my son was playing in a cricket match at Dersingham, Norfolk, a short distance from the Queen's estate at Sandringham. The weather wasn't great (the match was eventually called off without a ball being bowled) so I took refuge in The Feathers (above), an old-fashioned family-run hotel next to to the cricket ground.

There were three bars, including one in a converted stable block, but I couldn't help noticing a fourth room, overlooking (I think) the garden, because it bore the sign 'No Smoking Area'.

It beggars belief that the law doesn't allow one bar, or the former 'No Smoking Area', to be designated as an indoor smoking room because it would still leave 90 per cent of the building, including restaurant and reception, smoke free, but that's Britain for you.

Today I'm off to Market Deeping in Lincolnshire where my son has another cricket match. If there's anything to report I'll let you know.

Soundbite

Went to the local Cineworld on Saturday to see Toy Story 3 but the cinema was full so we went home and watched Star Trek (the 2009 movie) on DVD instead. I'm not a fan of SF and blockbusters such as Star Wars leave me cold, but I enjoyed it. The film also brought out the best in the modest sound system I have added to our new TV. It works like this: crank up the volume and at key moments a deep rumbling noise (like an approaching Underground train) causes both the floor and the furniture to vibrate. Who needs 3D?

Midsummer madness

Interesting post on Iain Dale's Diary concerning cigarette bins in London. Apparently Westminster Council is taking the taxi firm Addison Lee to court because it's they who are apparently responsible for many of the cigarette bins you see outside pubs and clubs in central London.

A year ago, having seen a similar bin on the wall of a pub near the Forest office in Soho, I enquired about the cost of using cigarette bins outside pubs to promote the Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign. I didn't follow through with it but I rather wish we had. Forest versus Westminster Council has a rather nice ring to it!

Meanwhile it shows what we're up against. As Iain implies, Addison Lee should be congratulated not prosecuted for paying to provide cigarette bins in the capital. The truth is, cigarette bins are unpopular with some bureaucrats (and politicians) because they "normalise" smoking.

I guess too that if cigarette bins are removed from public buildings it also makes it harder for smokers to dispose of their butts and they therefore become an easy target for fines when they drop their butts on the ground.

Alternatively, it gives anti-smoking campaigners an excuse to call for a ban on smoking outside pubs and clubs because of the litter.

Read Iain's post HERE. The London Evening Standard has the story HERE.

Boisdale of Canary Wharf

Had lunch yesterday at Boisdale of Belgravia. For months (years?) Boisdale MD Ranald Macdonald has been telling me about a project to open a similar smoker-friendly bar restaurant in London's Docklands.

It has now been announced that Boisdale of Canary Wharf will open in "early 2011" and will feature an "amazing cigar terrace". See HERE.

My information is that BCW will open its doors on Burns' Night (January 25). Should be quite a party.

Ranald has also been talking about opening a Boisdale bar restaurant in Washington DC. World domination awaits!

Above: Boisdale of Canary Wharf "will occupy the entire façade of the first and second floors of Cabot Hall overlooking the fountains of Cabot Square with uninterrupted views to City of London skyline".

Interview with a broadcasting legend

This week's Spectator Diary, written by Charles Moore, former editor of The Spectator and the Daily Telegraph, caught my eye because it mentions the former ITN journalist Sandy Gall and his tireless work for victims of war in Afghanistan.

Now 82, Gall was the first prominent person I ever interviewed. The year was 1979. Mrs Thatcher had just been elected prime minister; Sandy Gall was rector of Aberdeen University, having been elected the previous year; and I was editor of an Aberdeen student newspaper that was launched as a rival to Gaudie, the official (and very boring) student union propaganda sheet.

Reading the interview 31 years later it seems that one or two questions are as topical today as they were then. Judge for yourself:

What were your interests at university? Were you always interested in journalism?
Funnily enough, I only became interested in my last year. I was never particularly interested in Gaudie. I played a bit of rugby, and I was a member of the athletics team. I enjoyed being a member of the Lairig [climbing] Club, and I went to the [Aberdeen University] Debater sometimes.

So how did you get into journalism?
Well, I worked for six months with the [Aberdeen] Press & Journal as a sub-editor, and I did a couple of summer courses at Bonn and Mainz which helped get me a job with Reuters working in Berlin, Bonn and Frankfurt.

Your rectorial address was about the freedom of the press. You said Britain and America have the most free press in the world. What do you say to those, especially the unions, who complain that the British press is controlled by a few publishing tycoons?
Well, someone has to own the newspapers and it certainly musn't be the state. Private enterprise is far preferable. Every paper has to have an editorial policy. If the unions published their own paper they'd still have to choose an editor who has some sort of policy. Television, of course, has to remain impartial.

When he was addressing the first year students [Aberdeen student union leader] Bob Mclean was trying to get everyone to fight Government cuts in education. Do you think education should be a special case?
Of course I'd like to see students getting as much as they can but the country's economic state is bad and departments have to cut back. A special case could be made for lots of departments. You can't make a special case for students, except perhaps the fate of the country relies on the quality of the graduates.

Do you still think a degree is a worthwhile achievement or do you take the view that degrees have been cheapened by the vast numbers of students now at college?
No, I don't take that view. You still stand a better chance of getting a job with a degree. For instance, ITN only takes a few trainees each year but they're all graduates so it certainly helps to climb the ladder of the media. Anyway, university isn't just about getting a degree, it offers a very broad education.

Why did you sign the petition supporting the National Union of Students claim for a 24 per cent rise in [student] grants? Did you know that in Aberdeen the student union had to offer prizes to the person who collected the most signatures?
Really? Well, it seemed a worthy cause. I was trying to be representative.

Who do you take your advice from - the student union or the ordinary student?
I take advice from everybody, although a rector has an independent role and must do what he thinks best for students as a whole.

And so on.

Funnily enough, I notice that in the biographical notes alongside the main article it says: "Sandy Gall enjoys fine cigars".

Damn. I should have asked him about smoking!

Why I tip my hat to Tony Blair

For me, the joy of being on holiday is catching up on all those books you wanted to read but never had the time. Some had been gathering dust for over six months so here was the perfect opportunity to put that right. Pity about their combined weight, though. Before I go on holiday again I'm going to buy an iPad and download all the books I want to read on to that!

Anyway, my holiday was dominated by one man. Yesterday's man, certainly, but in his day an incredibly powerful force in British politics. Tony Blair? Peter Mandelson? No, Gordon Brown.

Reading Mandelson's The Third Man (best described as an entertaining romp) followed by Andrew Rawnsley's rather more authoritative The End of the Party, this reader was left in no doubt that throughout the Blair years Gordon Brown was the real power behind the throne.

But not in a good way. If you believe these books, Brown was a shit with a capital 'S'. (Rawnsley goes further, much further, implying that he was a liar and a hypocrite.)

Some will argue that Blair should have sacked his scheming Chancellor quite early on and the fact that he didn't was evidence of a weak PM. Inevitably it was a lot more complicated than that.

Imagine, however, working year after year with someone who openly wants your job, employs a team of people to undermine you, ignores or refuses to engage with you whenever it suits him, and repeatedly tries to bully you to step down so he can take your place. Most people would find that intolerable.

I'm no fan of Tony Blair but when I read what he had to put up with, day after day, year after year, from the man next door (and a so-called colleague) I marvel that he stuck it out as long as he did whilst maintaining a generally cheerful public persona.

Blair may be over-rated by some, but for this reason alone I take my hat off to him.

My holiday hell

Just kidding.

Actually, I've been on a 12-day voyage that embraced Iceland, the Norwegian fjords and, for a brief period, the Arctic Circle.

The last time I took my family on a cruise someone commented, rather sarcastically I thought, "How nice for you, Simon", so I'll keep this short.

Or, rather, I'll report - direct from the Captain's Log (with my own observations in brackets) - on the conditions we experienced:

Southampton: Cloudy, 75^oF
Reykjavik, Iceland: Overcast (very wet/very windy), 56^oF
Akureyri, Iceland: Overcast, 59^oF
Alesund, Norway: Cloudy, 67^oF
Hellesylt/Geiranger, Norway: Cloudy (showers), 68^oF
Olden, Norway: Overcast, 60^oF
Bergen, Norway: Overcast (incessant rain), 62^oF

Apparently it rains, on average, 235 days a year in Bergen and between October 29, 2006, and January 21, 2007, rain fell for 85 consecutive days. Fact.

To be fair, the sun did pop out from time to time and when it did it was worth the wait. You can't beat sitting on a stateroom balcony, good book in one hand, gin and tonic in the other, while the world goes by at approximately 17.5 knots. (It helps if there is some scenery to look at. I'm less keen on cruises where there is nothing to see apart from the horizon.)

Of course there's always a downside (why else would you read this blog?) and the downside of cruising is that you put on at least half a stone in weight. As a result, the trousers I wore quite comfortably before I left are now hopelessly redundant.

The good news is that I'm a lightweight compared to many of the ship's passengers. On the final evening there was a fire sale of clothing and, I kid you not, sizes included L, XL, XXL, XXXL and XXXXL!!! I bought a couple of t-shirts sized XXL. However, another week of eating and drinking on this scale and I'd be searching for a label that reads XXXXXL - or "You fat bastard" for short.

Anyway, I have posted some photos of our enormous floating hotel.

Above: the Crown Princess towers above Alesund, an attractive Norwegian town renowned for its colourful Art Nouveau architecture. While we were there we visited the Jugendstil Museum. The exhibits were interesting but the cafe was outstanding. I particularly recommend the chocolate cake.

Below: the ship in Geiranger fjord. To get this photo we had to climb a steep hill. Fortunately there was a bar a bit further on and I was able to get my breath back with the help of a large glass of beer.

One more post - about my holiday reading - and then it's back to work.

Open thread

You are welcome to comment on a wide range of issues while I am away (see below) but please don't abuse this thread. Comment moderation can be activated should the need arise ...

Update on Wednesday, August 11, 2010 by Simon Clark

Thanks for all your comments. I've just read them and there's some interesting stuff. I might make this Open Thread a regular feature!

No more blogging ...

... for a while at least. I'm off to Reykjavik (above) and other northern habitats so things may be rather quiet around here.